Donald Trump's speeches have grown noticeably darker and less coherent — and New York Times correspondent Peter Baker has tracked the changes using statistics.
The reporter conducted an analysis of the former president's rally speeches dating back to 2015 and found that they had nearly doubled in length, from 45 minutes eight years ago to 82 minutes now. And they show clear signs of advancing age and diminishing mental capacity.
"It's not new that Donald Trump is a discursive speaker, that he rambles, that he says things that are outrageous, that he says things that are untrue, that he seems to at times be disconnected from the norms, the standards that we are used to," Baker told MSNBC's Morning Joe.
"So there is this debate, does that mean he's getting older or not? ... We did an analysis of all of the rallies going back to 2015. I looked at many of them, not all of them, and we do see some changes. Yes, more accentuation of the negative, more accentuation of all-or-nothing wording like 'never,' like 'always,' more, you know, use of swear words. Here is a funny statistic: He uses swear words 69 percent of the time more than he did in 2016.
"That's something that could be what experts call disinhibition, you lose your inhibitions as you get older — that's a possibility here."
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"We see the speeches getting longer, more rambling," Baker added. "They're nearly twice as long today as they were in 2016. At the same time he's doing far fewer of them. Does that mean he's tired? We don't know. Obviously, we remember he nodded off during his hush money trial. He's doing less than one quarter of the rallies so far this year than he did in 2016, so I think it's appropriate to look at age."
President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July, a month after his disastrous performance during a debate against Trump highlighted concerns about his age and fitness to serve another term, and Baker said it was fair to consider the same questions about the 78-year-old Republican nominee.
"Obviously, he doesn't have the same issues that President Biden has, President Biden presented very, you know, old physically, right?" Baker said. "He looked frail, he was having a hard time on that debate stage, we all remember that.
"Trump has different issues. He obviously still exudes energy and he obviously is loud and bombastic, that hasn't changed. But if you watch the speech patterns, if you spend time watching these rallies and comparing them to the past, you can see some differences."
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